student loans

An audit of the Missouri Department of Higher Education takes issue with a now-defunct the loan program it still oversees.

The Advantage Missouri program paid out a total of $8 million in student loans from 1998 to 2005. The audit finds that $5.2 million of those $8 million have still not been repaid.

Auditor Nicole Galloway said there are no procedures to monitor and resolve amounts due on defaulted loans, and that higher ed officials do not know the current status of each outstanding loan or whether it’s collectible.

Graduation season is upon us, which means that college graduates across the nation will have to confront the realities of adulthood. Aside from finding careers and gaining overall independence, there’s another huge responsibility that’s facing millions of grads—handling student loan debt. Kara Tabor and Bita Eghbali of the Three Broke Mice podcast chat with Teddy Nykiel of NerdWallet.com about how young adults can overcome the debt hurdle.

There's a problem few are talking about when it comes to student debt. While the topic of undergrads taking out steep loans to pay for tuition costs often grabs the most attention, grad students face interest rates that are more than one third higher. But a group of students at the University of Missouri is trying to change that. Missouri Business Alert's Tatiana Darie spoke with the students of Grads Have Debt 2 about their efforts to achieve reform.

The White House says the average Missouri student borrower will save just over $1,500 this school year under bipartisan legislation approved last week in the Senate, which would undo a rate hike that took effect for subsidized Stafford loans on July 1.

U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) took part in a student loan roundtable today on the University of Missouri campus.

She is co-sponsoring the Bank on Student Loans Fairness Act with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). The bill would reduce the interest rate on federally guaranteed loans for undergraduates from the current 3.4 percent to the 0.75 percent-rate banks receive when they borrow from the government. McCaskill also heard from graduate and professional degree students in attendance who said their loans should be part of the discussion.

Sen. Claire McCaskill spoke on the University of Missouri Columbia campus Tuesday to kick off her “On Our Campus, On Our Side” tour.

The Democratic incumbent told students it’s important to keep Pell Grants and federal student loans available to sustain education. McCaskill says her opponent, Rep. Todd Akin, wants to eliminate student loans and that would hurt the middle class.